‘Deadpool 2’ Set Photos Could Hint At The Juggernaut

One of the X-Men’s oldest foes may be making a return to the big screen in Deadpool 2.

Juggernaut’s appearance in Deadpool 2 is far from confirmed for now, but new photos from the set of the sequel show a large, unidentified actor wearing a motion capture suit who was said to be using a rig similar to the one used to create Colossus in the first Deadpool.

Check out the photo – and the Tweet that misidentifies the actor as Jack Kesy, more on that in a moment – below.

The photos were first noticed by Omega Underground, who confirmed in a Twitter exchange with the photographer that a large rig similar to the one used for Colossus was used during filming and that the scene involved some other “guys in yellow.”

This isn’t the only hint we’ve had that Juggernaut could be coming to Deadpool 2. As OU mentions, some audition tapes previously surfaced – and have since been taken down by 20th Century Fox – that were for a role that sounds like it could very well be the Juggernaut.

Juggernaut has made one live-action movie appearance in the past. Vinnie Jones played Juggernaut in X-Men: The Last Stand.

In the Marvel Comics universe, the Juggernaut is Cain Marko, the aggressive step-brother of Professor X. Marko is not a mutant himself, but discovered a mystical artifact called the Crimson Gem of Cytorrak while fighting abroad during a war. Cytorrak is a god-like demon and his gem endows whoever touches it with the Crimson Bands of Cytorrak, which in turn transforms the individual into a “human juggernaut” and the living avatar of Cytorrak on Earth.

Since he isn’t a mutant himself, the Juggernaut is a rarity among X-Men villain in that his motivations usually have little to do with human-mutant relations. Instead, he tends to be motivated by simple greed – which sometimes leads to conflict with other heroes like Spider-Man – or resentment towards his step-brother, which tends to end up with him storming the X-Mansion and fighting the X-Men.

As the Juggernaut, Cain Marko is virtually unstoppable and possesses near limitless strength and invulnerability.

There’s some other, somewhat more circumstantial evidence that the Juggernaut could be in Deadpool 2, and his involvement would make a lot of sense thanks to his connections to some of the other characters rumored or confirmed to be in Deadpool 2. Keep reading and we’ll explain these connections.

Black Tom Cassidy

Jack Kesy was cast as a villain in Deadpool 2 in May 2017. While his role has not officially been disclosed, rumors suggest that he will be playing Black Tom Cassidy, a relative of Banshee of the X-Men and a criminal and mercenary.

In the Marvel Comics Universe, during a time when Cain Marko was imprisoned, he met and befriended Black Tom, who was also an inmate. Black Tom has the power to fire powerful energy blasts channeled through wood, usually a shillelagh, and used that power to help himself and Juggernaut escape.

Since this meeting, Black Tom and Juggernaut have been nearly inseparable friends and partners. The easiest way to defeat the Juggernaut is often to put Black Tom in fatal peril since Juggernaut will usually break off from whatever he’s currently doing to save his friend.

Black Tom and Juggernaut were some of the earliest foes to challenge the new team of X-Men when Wolverine, Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus, and Banshee first joined the team. The duo even formed a short-lived incarnation of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. They most recently re-teamed in the debut issue of X-Men Blue earlier this year, but they’ve also challenged Deadpool…

Versus Deadpool

Black Tom Cassidy’s partnership and friendship with the Juggernaut makes it seem very plausible that if one of them is in Deadpool 2, then the other will be as well.

Black Tom Cassidy and Juggernaut have crossed paths with Deadpool on more than one occasion, meaning there are plenty of narrative threads that the film could take from the characters’ shared comic book history.

In Deadpool: The Circle Chase, Deadpool’s very first solo miniseries, it was revealed that Black Tom’s mutant power had gone out of control and was changing his own physiology to be more plantlike. Tom and Juggernaut tried to capture Deadpool so that they could steal his healing factor and hopefully fix Tom.

That same story also involved Deadpool attempting to kill a telepathic mutant who would later be called Black Box. Black Box would slater eek revenge, first hiring Deadpool to kill Cable, who will also appear in Deadpool 2, and later hiring Black Tom and others to kill Deadpool.

Deadpool would later battle Black Tom again when he came to the assistance Siryn, Banshee’s daughter and Tom’s niece, who was a member of X-Force at the time. This would lead to Deadpool’s romantic infatuation with Siryn.

Juggernaut Versus Colossus

A fan-favorite aspect of the first Deadpool movie was the new take on Colossus, and Colossus is a mutant with a long rivalry with the Juggernaut.

The Juggernaut and Colossus first battled when Juggernaut and Black Tom were hired to kill the X-Men. Tom and Juggernaut laid a trap for the X-Men at Cassidy Keep, where Juggernaut and Colossus first battled. Juggernaut managed to easily defeat not only Juggernaut but all of the X-Men, who were only saved by tossing Black Tom into the ocean so that Juggernaut would dive in after him.

Later, in the classic Uncanny X-Men #183, Wolverine and Nightcrawler purposely baited Colossus into a drunken bar brawl with the Juggernaut as payback for Colossus’ poor treatment of Kitty Pryde.

But that’s hardly the most epic part of Colossus and Juggernaut’s rivalry…

Colossus Becomes The Juggernaut

Colossus and Juggernaut’s rivalry truly came to a head during Marvel’s Fear Itself event.

The Juggernaut became empowered by the Asgardian hammer of Kuurth, making him even more unstoppable than before, and began marching towards the mutant island sanctuary of Utopia.

At a loss for solutions, Colossus’s sister, the sorceress Magik, transported them both to the realm of Cytorrak and played on the demon-gods’ jealousy to convince him to strip Cain Marko of the Crimson Bands and make Colossus the new Juggernaut.

Using this new power, Colossus defeated Cain Marko and continued acting as the Juggernaut for some time, up until he became possessed by the Phoenix Force during the Avengers vs. X-Men event.

Interestingly, once Colossus was no longer empowered by either Cytorrak or the Phoenix Force, he left the X-Men and joined up with Cable as a member of X-Force. During his time with the team, Colossus became romantically involved with Domino. These both are stories that the Deadpool and X-Force movies could draw from.

More Deadpool 2

Deadpool 2 currently has a 4.07 out of 5 ComicBook.com User Anticipation Rating, making it the fifth-most anticipated upcoming comic book movie among ComicBook.com readers. Let us know how excited you are for Deadpool 2 by giving it your own anticipation rating below.

Deadpool 2 opens in theaters on June 1, 2018.